The keep-alive Time-stamp and KildClient

Most ISPs (we really mean all) will drop stale connections. If you've been connected to the game too long without sending or receiving anything odds are incredibly high that you'll be disconnected. The easiest way around this is to ensure that the game keeps sending you output on a regular basis. Some players choose to use their @Atime to do this, but what if you want to put other code in there without tripping over a keep alive? What if you don't want to bother with setting up any code on the MARE side at all?

Enter the timestamp channel. On a regular basis (once per minute), the current date and time are sent to this channel. If you've joined, you'll receive it too, keeping your connection nice and fresh (and nobody likes a whiffy connection, geeze, just what were you DOING with it?). The output of this channel looks something like this:

[timestamp] Sat May 20 17:23:57 2017

Of course, you don't want your screen filling up with all those time stamps (You don't, do you? Gosh you're weird). This means you need your client to hide them. This is called gagging. No, not like that, like tying a gag over a mouth. In most clients, and in KildClient in particular, this is done with a trigger.

Creating a timestamp trigger in KildClient

First things first, you have to actually join the channel. So send this to the game:

+ch +timestamp
+ch public

and you'll see output that looks something like this:

[timestamp] * QBFreak has joined this channel.
Channel timestamp is now default.
Channel public is now default.

Now we create our trigger!

Click the World menu and choose Edit

In the tree view in the Edit world window, expand Automation and then click Triggers. Then click the New button.

In the Edit trigger window, enter the following information:

Field	Value	Comments
Name	Timestamp	You can actually set this to whatever you want
Pattern	^\[timestamp\] .*	That's CARET, Backslash, Left brace, "timestamp", Backslash, Right brace, SPACE, DOT, Asterisk
Omit (gag) from output	Checked	This is what keeps it from displaying on your screen
Omit (gag) from log file	Checked	Optional but recommended, this will keep it out of your log files as well
Enabled	Checked	It wont work if it's not enabled

Click OK to close the Edit trigger window. Click OK to close the Edit world window.

All set! If you want to test it, try sending this:

@echo [timestamp] test

You shouldn't see any output back from the game. If you did, something is wrong with your trigger. Check and make sure the Pattern is correct.

-- SolarQBFreak - 20 May 2017